Systems for processing credit card charges can provide sophisticated business rules decisioning and account management features. For example, Visa U.S.A. Inc. has extensive expertise in card payment processing features, such as decisioning and risk management assessment, account management, account reconciliation, customer identification, and the like. This expertise is delivered through the proprietary network known as “VisaNet”. Data relating to credit card financial transactions is received into the network and processed. The financial transactions data is routinely communicated between such processing networks and business entities, including entities such as product vendors and service providers, issuers, acquirers, and various financial institutions. Thus, the sophisticated charge card data processing expertise and extensive database processing features are readily available from networks such as the “VisaNet” network for processing such transactions.
Such database processing features could be useful in other financial streams for non-card forms of payment and transactions, such as checks, money transfers, online banking, and Web-based bill payment. There are no currently available interfaces that would permit capture of such financial transactions for processing by systems such as the VisaNet network. Thus, a truly global payments hub with the sophisticated processing features now enjoyed by the credit card payment industry is not currently available.
There are existing systems that style themselves as a “global payment hub” for multiple streams of payment, but they cannot provide the full range of processing features enjoyed by card payment processing systems such as VisaNet because (1) such existing systems typically cannot truly accommodate multiple payment streams but are limited to banking, or checks, for funds transfer, but cannot process across all such streams; (2) they do not have a system architecture that permits modular integration of new lines of payment streams as they arise; (3) even if such systems could process multiple streams of incoming payment, they cannot offer the sophisticated database processing features such as offered by VisaNet for card payment processing, comprising decisioning, risk analysis, account management, and the like.
Thus, existing payment processing systems require relatively complicated customized software solutions that are specially configured for the provider of each individual incoming payment data stream and typically cannot provide the breadth of risk management and account management features and the like that can be provided by sophisticated charge account processing systems such as the VisaNet system. Moreover, integration with existing card payment processing networks can be advantageous for consumers, because of the efficiency and convenience consumers may experience by having a single source for communication about financial transactions.
What is needed is a truly “global payment hub” system that can interface with existing external payment networks to provide proper communication and security across all types of financial transactions, accommodate future payment streams without complicated interface modifications, and provide sophisticated database processing features such as decisioning, risk analysis, account management, and the like. The present invention satisfies these needs.